Kyle Busch, driver of the #54 Monster Energy Toyota, celebrates in victory lane after winning the NASCAR Nationwide Series Dollar General 300 Powered by Coca-Cola at Chicagoland Speedway on September 14, 2013
Photo – Todd Warshaw/Getty Images
Making it look easy from the pole to victory lane, Kyle Busch dominated the Nationwide Series Dollar General 300 on Saturday evening at Chicagoland Speedway by leading the most laps – 195 of 200. This victory is Busch’s tenth series win of 20 events in the season, 61st of his series career and third at Chicagoland Speedway.
After winning Friday night’s Camping World Truck race and Saturday’s Nationwide race, Busch is now looking to sweep with a third victory in the Sprint Cup Series race on Sunday. If he succeeds, it will mark his second three-series weekend sweep of his career. Busch is well aware that goal is not an easy task, recognizing the handling of his car in Sprint Cup practice was not ideal.
“We tried a lot of stuff (Saturday) in the Cup garage and couldn’t really find the feel I was looking for, couldn’t really find the grip I was looking to have that would produce fast lap times and comfortable for me,” Busch said. “It’s going to be a bit of a challenge (Sunday).
“I think we’re a top-ten car right now. That’s a little further off than I’d like to start going into (Sunday), but we’ll just have to work through 400 miles and push hard and see if we can’t achieve the trifecta.”
Penske competitors and teammates, Logano and Hornish were in agreement they need a little more speed to compete with Busch on a regular basis, while at the same time recognizing their own accomplishments. Four Penske drivers together have ten Nationwide Series’ victories this season, and they want a bit more.
“We’re not far behind – we’ve won quite a few races this year,” Logano said. “But the 54 car is obviously our main competition every weekend. Where it’s at is hard to pinpoint. It’s probably a little bit of body, it could be some motor, it could be some of our chassis setups.
“We have to look in every little area to find a little bit of speed. It’s not like he’s a half-second quicker than us. He’s a tenth better, all day today… It’s hard to pinpoint exactly where it’s at – because he drives away so fast you can’t figure it out quick enough.”
Busch held a lead of more than three seconds after running first for 153 of 158 laps, when Brett Butler plowed into the back of title contender Elliott Sadler’s No. 11 car was slowing down and Sadler was signaling his intention to enter pit road.
With the caution, lead-lap cars headed to pit road on lap 160 for tires and fuel, leaving them with enough gas to comfortably complete the race. Busch was first off pit road for a restart on lap 164, but just one lap later, a caution for debris, once again bunched the field for the fourth time.
On the lap 170 restart, Busch pulled away and stretched his lead until the next caution when Kyle Larson blew a left rear tire and smacked the outside wall in turn two, spewing debris throughout the corner.
The restart on lap 182 would not be the last of the day. One circuit later, Justin Allgaier clipped the outside wall, bouncing into Regan Smith and sending his No. 7 car spinning down the backstretch. Smith entered the race third in the point standings and kept his car on the lead lap, but restarted 18th when Busch led the field to green on lap 187.
By the checkered flag, Smith worked his way up to 13th, but lost ground to points leader, Hornish, as did Sadler, who ran 19th, one lap down. With Smith and Sadler both having issues, dropping them to 36 and 44 points behind Hornish, the championship quest becomes more of a two-man battle.
“There’s still a long time to go,” Hornish said. “What? Seven races? A lot can happen. We have to be smart about how we run it and all those things. One flat tire can lose you a bunch of points. I feel like I was pretty excited about where we were running at about lap 160, with how we were running.
“I think Austin was seventh, and we were running second and catching the leader a little bit. All of a sudden the yellow comes out, and we were running third, and he (Dillon) was second. We worked real hard to get back around there at the end, and I just wish we’d had a little more for a short run.”
Finishing 1.616 seconds behind Busch to finish second was Joey Logano, with his Penske Racing teammate, Sam Hornish Jr finishing next. Hornish leaves Chicagoland with a 17-point advantage over Austin Dillon, and with a third place finish. Austin Dillon finished fourth, with Dale Earnhardt Jr in fifth.
Rounding out the top-ten are Brian Vickers claiming sixth, Matt Kenseth seventh, Parker Kligerman eighth, Kevin Harvick ninth and series Rookie of the Year contender Nelson Piquet Jr taking a tenth-place finishing spot.
The next Nationwide Series race is the second annual Kentucky 300 at Kentucky Speedway on Saturday, September 21st. The starting time is 7:50pm ET with ESPNEWS television coverage beginning at 7:00pm ET.
Race Results
Point Standings
